


All I Want for Christmas Is Two

by HedonistInk



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Christmas, Christmas Eve, Christmas Fluff, Christmas Morning, Crushes, First Kiss, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Love Confessions, M/M, Mistletoe, Multi, Mutual Pining, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Winter Shklance Exchange 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-21
Updated: 2019-01-21
Packaged: 2019-10-14 02:44:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17500076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HedonistInk/pseuds/HedonistInk
Summary: Being hopelessly in love with your best friend was enough of a problem. Being hopelessly in love with both of your best friends, on the other hand? Well, that was just fuckingtragic.Or at least... That was what Keith thought. But maybe, just maybe, Christmas miracles weren't just the stuff of stories.





	All I Want for Christmas Is Two

**Author's Note:**

> Ahhhhh I'm so sorry this is late! Here's my late Shklance exchange for fa-la-la-lance over on tumblr! Lemme know if you've got an ao3 so I can gift this to you here!!

Being hopelessly in love with your best friend was enough of a problem. Being hopelessly in love with _both_ of your best friends was just fucking _tragic_.

Unfortunately for Keith, that was exactly the situation he’d managed to find himself in. To make matters worse, said best friends were also currently his _roommates_ and that was just territory he was _never_ going to cross into.

Besides that… It wasn’t like either of them felt the same way about him, after all. Shiro was the funny, handsome, guiding hand. Lance was the outgoing, goofball, daredevil. Keith was… _Keith,_ the weird cryptid who’d only started coming out of his introverted shell around these two very specific people largely because they’d been cohabitating six hundred square feet for two years. You kind of learned to be less awkward around someone sometime at or around the twentieth time having to return a pair of their underwear that wound up in your wash after getting left in the machine.

And Keith had managed to fall hopelessly head over heels for not _one_ but _both_ of them. As the holiday season approached, Lance went into overdrive with his holiday preparations. Christmas was a big deal for him and Lance loved to host a good party or four. It meant the tree had to be up _on time_ every time for the _tree decorating party_. Which also meant Shiro and Keith going to the storage unit for their apartment to go drag the tree out and get it upstairs into their apartment despite the snow falling down outside.

“...Is it just me or does this tree feel like it gets heavier every year?” Keith groaned, tugging the plastic-wrapped green _thing_ out from behind an assortment of boxes of _crap_ they’d collected throughout the year. They would go through their storage unit the week after Christmas, like they always did, and organize and sort and get rid of crap they didn’t _really_ need, but for the moment it was just a _mess._

“D’you want me to get that?” Shiro asked, working on finding and retrieving all the boxes marked “XMAS — FRAGILE” and flagged with bright red duct tape.

“Nah…” Keith shrugged. “I got it. You can carry it up, though…”

“Gee… thanks…” Shiro laughed, putting together another stack of mis-matched boxes as Keith finally managed to free the tree from its out-of-season home. “The things we do for Lance, huh?”

Keith snorted a laugh, nodding with a shrug as he picked up a stack of boxes. “Pretty much. What are we gonna do…? He’s our best friend. And we _both_ know better than to question him when it comes to decorating by now…”

“He is that…” Shiro laughed, but the sound didn’t quite ring as deep and true as it usually did.

Keith frowned, turning to look at Shiro. “...Hey, what’s wrong?”

“O-oh… Uh… nothing! Nothing,” Shiro assured, fiddling with the string from his hoodie, sticking out past his coat.

“...You’re a terrible liar, Shirogane,” Keith remarked flatly, rolling his eyes. “Grab the tree and talk to me. It’s okay… You know I’m your right hand man, you can tell me anything.” If only he could be more than that. “We’re like family, right?”

“...R-right… family…” Shiro agreed. Wow, he really must have been nervous about this. “Can I tell you something totally weird? I just… can’t get it out of my head.”

“Huh? I mean… yeah, of course, you’re my best friend. Go for it,” Keith agreed.  

“Obviously it’d be… totally weird if any of us ever… got together or dated in the group, right?” Shiro asked.

Keith nearly dropped his boxes. “U-uh… I mean… yeah? Probably be p-pretty weird?” He couldn’t breathe, his heart was beating at double-time.

If this were a romance movie, this would be the part where Shiro confessed he liked Keith and they would kiss and the music would change… But this wasn’t a movie, this was real life.

“R-right… So… Obviously I have _zero_ intention of _acting_ on this… But I think I might… I mean… Lance is kind of cute, right?”

Keith felt his heart fall out his ass. …Shiro had a crush on Lance? …Of course Shiro had a crush on Lance, because the universe fucking hated Keith Kogane.   

“Don’t worry… Your secret’s safe with me, Shiro,” Keith promised, squeezing Shiro’s shoulder. “...Between you and me? I uh… I kinda like him too.”

“Y-you do?” Shiro asked, brows raising. “O-oh…” If Keith tried, he could pretend the disappointment in Shiro’s tone was because _Shiro_ liked _Keith_ but… that was a pipe dream.

“I mean… he’s funny… cute… nice… I can see why you’re into him,” Keith shrugged, heading up the stairs.

“Y-yeah… I mean… there’s… there’s definitely a lot to like about him,” Shiro agreed. “But… I wouldn’t wanna mess around with our friendship like that… We’ve all got a good thing going here.”

“Right… yeah…” Keith nodded. “No, totally, that’s why I haven’t said anything about it… B-but… thanks for trusting me? I promise, your secret’s safe with me.”

Shiro huffed a small, relieved laugh. “And the same for you. …I’m glad I can always count on you to have my back, Keith…” he smiled. “You’re the best friend a guy could ask for.”

“Yeah, yeah, just help me get the rest of those boxes up before Lance gets home from work,” Keith laughed, forcing himself to smile.

It was a few days before Christmas when Keith found himself faced _again_ with questions about his love life. This time, he was ambushed while rolling out dough for the cookies for the Christmas party.

“So… how’s the dating scene going? You gonna bring somebody to one of my holiday shindigs like… _ever?_ ” Lance asked, elbowing Keith lightly before going back to stirring his pie filling.

Keith snorted. “Hey, I am _perfectly_ good company by myself. I mean… not like I’ve got much of a dating pool right now anyway?” Keith laughed. “Even if I could find somebody, you guys are like the only ones that really _get_ me…”

Lance huffed a small laugh. “I mean, you are kinda a broken alien about some shit. But you’re _our_ broken alien.”

_Ours…_ If only.

Keith forced a small laugh. “Yeah… Basically. A-and… you guys are like my best friends s-so it’s not like _that’s_ an option… That would be…” _Perfect?_

“Weird?” Lance asked. There was something in Lance’s tone that Keith couldn’t _quite_ place, an emotion he couldn’t put a name to. Still, Keith’s heart plummeted as Lance voiced the word so counter to his own hidden thoughts.

Shrugging it off, Keith nodded. “Yeah, exactly…”

“…What if one of us started dating another one of us…?”

Keith froze with the rolling pin still in his hand. Lance liked Shiro. And he already knew Shiro liked Lance. It was… it was obvious what Keith should do, what he practically had an obligation to do.

…Just because it was obvious didn't mean it didn't suck for his own feelings. But if Shiro and Lance could be happy together… It would be worth it.

Keith let out a shaky breath, continuing to roll the cookie dough. "You uh… you like Shiro?”

Lance shrugged slightly. “I… I mean… yeah? H-have you _seen_ him? He’s…”

Keith let out a small breath. God did he know. Shiro was perfect and sweet and funny and kind and… “Yeah… He really is. That… you should go for it. Y-you should tell him. I think there's a good chance he likes you back."

"Pfft, what? No way… Shiro's gotta be into somebody… cool and funny and…"

"And likes you. He told me so," Keith added.

"Fuck, what? You're crazy…"

"I think I would know who my best friend is in love with, Lance…" Yeah, and it sure wasn’t Keith… Shiro and Lance were only ever going to see him as a friend.

“I— You’re… you’re sure that’s cool? I don’t wanna make things weird for us…” Lance offered, hesitant. “I mean… the three of us share this tiny ass apartment, I don’t wanna make you be like… three-wheeling or something…”

Keith forced himself to give his most genuine smile, reaching to squeeze Lance’s arm. “I’m sure, man… Go for it. Ask him out.”

“I… yeah, yeah, okay, I think I will…” Lance nodded, smiling a bit, a breathless and genuinely _happy_ gesture that took Keith’s breath away.

Keith felt his heart shatter in that moment. But still he smiled back. And went back to rolling out dough for the cookies.

It wasn’t until Christmas morning that the situation Keith had been trying to avoid paying any attention to came back around to step on his heart again. The Christmas party had been great and fun and… more than a few mistletoe kisses fueled by Pidge’s spiked eggnog had been exchanged between _everyone_ after the sheer amount Lance had booby trapped the apartment with. But… those didn’t _mean_ anything. It was just mistletoe, after all. But Keith couldn’t get them off his mind, the feel of Shiro’s lips, the taste of Lance’s chapstick, the way his heart soared and sank both at once on seeing Shiro and Lance kiss _each other…_ Getting up early, Keith crept around the sleeping figures scattered around their living room to grab his laundry basket and head down to the laundry room. At least he could do a load of the laundry he’d been putting off…

“H-hey, Keith?” Shiro asked carefully as he stepped into the laundry room.

Keith startled, looking up from where he was folding laundry. “Oh… Hey… morning, Shiro… What’s up?”

“…You’re up early…” Shiro commented, fiddling with the string from his hoodie. “Figured you were down here when I saw your basket was gone…”

“Yeah, I couldn’t sleep and I didn’t wanna wake anybody so—” Keith spotted the fiddling and sighed, finishing folding a shirt and setting it to the side. “…Okay, spit it out.”

Shiro’s eyes nearly bulged. “S-spit what out?”

“You’re doing the fiddly thing with your string. You only do that when you’re trying to figure out how to tell me something that you’re nervous about. So just spit it out,” Keith explained, raising a brow.

Shiro glanced at the incriminating string before snapping his hand back down to his side and quickly smoothing out the front of his hoodie. "O-oh… Well… I was just… I wanted to talk to you about something…"

It wasn't hard to put two and two together, not in this situation. "…Lance asked you, didn't he?" Keith asked.

Shiro’s brows raised again. “H-how did—”

“Lance told me he liked you… Or… I guess… he told me he liked _somebody_ in our group and… it wasn’t hard to put two and two together…”

“…Oh… How um… how do you feel about that?”

"What do you mean?" Keith asked, frowning.

"O-oh… I mean… Well I know you like him…?" Shiro asked, floundering visibly. "I don't… I don't want to… Well… Step on any toes?"

Keith felt his heart break all the more. Shiro was too good, too nice, too kind. It wasn't fair. No one was supposed to be that perfect. Keith went back to folding his laundry with determination. “I told him to go for it.”

“Y-you did?” Shiro asked, surprised. Why the fuck was he surprised? What else was Keith supposed to do?

“I— I mean… yeah? He likes you, you like him… It just makes sense, right?” Keith offered, focusing very intently on his laundry.

“Keith…” Shiro sounded almost sad.

Keith didn’t dare to look up as he asked, “What?”

“…Keith…” Shiro said again, voice serious.

Reluctantly, Keith looked up.

“I know you like him too… It’s okay if you want me to say no…” Shiro offered.

Keith’s chest _ached_ with the reality of how _perfect_ Shiro was. It wasn’t _fair._ “N-no… It… It’s… You deserve to be happy, Shiro… It’s not like Lance likes me, anyway… _One_ of us deserves to end up with him…”

“…You don’t think Lance likes you…?” Shiro asked.

“…What? No… Why would he? He likes _you…_ Who _wouldn’t_ like you? You’re… basically the perfect dream guy,” Keith blabbered, unable to stop himself. “If you two can be happy _together,_ that’s… basically all a guy like me can ask for, right?”

Shiro was silent, staring at Keith as if seeing him for the first time.

“Wh— what?” Keith asked, nervous. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“…What about you?” Shiro asked, cryptically.

“…What about me?” Keith asked, frowning.

“You said who _wouldn’t_ like me. What about you? Do… do you…”

Keith froze, feeling the heat creep into his cheeks before he forced himself to look back down at the half-folded shirt on the table in front of him. “I…” He bit his lip before nodding quietly. “I— I’m sorry. I know it’s… I know that probably makes things weird. B-but… I know you don’t like me like that which is why I—”

“…I _do_ like you…” Shiro cut over him.

“…What?” Keith asked, voice flat in surprise.

“…I like you. _Like that._ Very… very much like that.”

“…But you like Lance?” Keith asked, confused.

Shiro nodded. “I like you both… Just… just like you apparently like _us_ both… And… and just like Lance likes you _and me_ both…”

Keith swore his brain was hitting an error page. “…What the fuck are you talking about, Shiro?”

“Lance likes you,” Shiro explained. “It… he told me he did… When he told me he liked me… But apparently he was under the impression that… You didn’t feel the same because you told him it would be _weird_ if one of us liked you…”

“… _Oh…_ ” Keith replied, tone soft. “S— so we… we all…”

“Like each other…? Apparently…” Shiro chuckled, running a hand through his hair.

“… _Oh._ ” Keith paused, trying to will his thoughts to work properly. “S-so… So then who…”

“I… why don’t… all of us…?” Shiro asked. “I mean… it would be a little more complicated trying to figure out… everything but…”

“All of us?” Keith asked, heart flipping and fluttering. “Like… t-together? All three of us? We can do that?”

Shiro laughed softly. “Why not? We wouldn’t be the first ones in the history of the universe… I think I’d be very lucky to get to date _both_ of my best friends and to see them being happy _together_ as well… How about you?”

Keith paused, thoughts running on overdrive as he tried to process the suggestion that was being presented to him. “I— y—” Keith bit his lip before nodding. “I think… I think I’d like that…”

Shiro smiled, a bright grin that made Keith’s heart _soar_. “Come on… I think we should go wake Lance up. It’s Christmas morning, after all. And I think we’ve got a really good gift to give him…” He offered out a hand.

Keith took Shiro’s hand without hesitating, scooping up his basket to rest against his hip. This was good. This was _okay._ He could have them _both_ . They _both_ liked him. They—

Keith’s thoughts were interrupted by the feeling of Shiro’s lips on his cheek. His face burned red as he turned to look at Shiro in confusion. “Wh—”

Shiro simply shrugged a sheepish shrug, gesturing at the mistletoe above them.

“You _dork…_ ” Keith snorted. “You call that a kiss? Don’t you know mistletoe kisses don’t count?” he asked, rolling his eyes before dragging Shiro out of the path of it and into a chaste but lingering kiss. “ _That’s_ a kiss. Now c’mon.”

Keith didn’t bother trying to keep the grin off of his face as they headed hand-in-hand for their apartment and Lance’s room.

It turned out that being in love with your best friend didn’t have to be a problem. And hopelessly in love with _both_ of your best friends? Well, _that_ was just a _little_ bit of a Christmas miracle.

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to whack that author subscription button on my profile for more updates or find me on [twitter](http://twitter.com/hedonistink), [tumblr,](http://hedonistink.tumblr.com/) or [pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.io/HedonistInk) for WIPs, idea snippets, behind the scenes tidbits, and extras!
> 
> As always, comments and kudos are treasured and appreciated! Your comments give me life!


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